[Flashback] Seeing and Touching (Azilis)

[Hadrian]

"Well, I held it too long, too. Perhaps we should take turns so at least one of us is aware all the time. Less aware of what is happening internally, but more aware of the externals, and time." He grinned, excited by intellectual endeavors more than anything else he knew. "Anyway, when I was seeing my blood-djed, it was red because I think of blood as red, right? Well, I remembered in the middle of it that I'm working on a vein, which carries blue blood back to the heart and lungs for air... And all of a sudden, the djed turned blue. My perception responded to my will, I think. Which is interesting, but also... One must be careful not to let expectations change perceptions. True vision, you know, should be true, not just what one wants to see." He paused, reining in his thoughts and his breath again. "Perhaps we should take a few moments before jumping into another exercise. It's a new discipline for both of us. I don't want us overgiving on our first day. Ahh, did you see any exercises that seemed especially helpful? We have to stay basic, of course."

[Azilis Theroulde]

Azilis listened carefully, nodding at Hadrian's statements. “Yeah, I know what you mean. And I didn't even think of the blood as red – strange, right? - so it was just white to me. It really is true what they say, the way people see their own Djed is so different. Even blood.” She stored the nugget of information away in her mind. “But I think you're right, we should probably do exercises one at a time from now on, since the idea of cutting off my circulation and necrosing my finger doesn't sound very appealing to me right now. So this exercise might work...” She stood up, brushing lint off her skirts, and reached for her bookbag. “Ah, petch, where it is it...” she muttered, rifling through its contents until she pulled out a copper-rimmed miza, its edges winking in the sunlight. “It's that one, you know, where one person holds a coin in her hand and the other person tries to get it out. It's more of the speed side of using the Flux. The person who isn't holding the coin stands two arm's-lengths away or so – close enough that he or she only has to concentrate the Flux in the muscle groups in one arm and hand. The one holding the coin leaves his or her fingers open, so they don't get broken or anything by the one using the Flux. Then the Flux-user tries to get the coin out so quickly that the person holding the coin doesn't see it and can't move away.” She held up the miza between them, her blue eyes glittering. “So what do you think? How fast are you, Hadrian?”

OOC :

I'm back home from vacation, so I should be able to post with more regularity now. Sorry 'bout the delay!

Also, I hope that was the sort of exercise you were looking for xD

[Hadrian]

Hadrian's first reaction was that this was too complex an exercise, but he was always an over-reacher, wanting to accomplish more and more, faster than anyone else. Though he looked dubious, he nodded and flashed her a daring smile. "Well, we can certainly try it." He took time to school his breathing in order to calm himself and bring about that sense of equilibrium; in doing so, he realized that meditation was a form of Flux. It was a conscious effort to bring one's djed into alignment, if only through the physical manifestations: breath, pulse, and the like. That exciting tidbit was filed away for later thought. Now he watched the flow of djed between them, the space and energy through which he would be moving. All the while, he willed more djed into his legs, feeling them vibrate with energy, which could, he hoped, be translated into speed and strength. "Are you ready?" he asked, several minutes later when he thought he had a handle on it. At her affirmation, he bolted toward her and in an instant knew that something was wrong. His legs were strong, those reflexes fast, but the rest of his body was not in sync with this new level of performance. His mind was not prepared to control his legs. And so it was with wide eyes and a terrified look that he plowed directly into Azilis, never even having the opportunity to reach for the coin. "AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!"

[Azilis Theroulde]

Azilis watched Hadrian with bated breath, holding the coin in her outstretched hand. Having never practiced the Flux before, she had no idea what the outcome of this particular exercise was supposed to be – did most people get it perfectly on the first go-round? Or had she set them up for disaster? But Hadrian's confident smile reassured her, and she stood straighter, watching him as he prepared to pounce for the coin. She, too, closed her eyes and began to meditate again, breathing slowly and pulling Djed up into her eyes to watch what he was doing auristically, since simply watching him focus with her regular vision wasn't going to teach her anything. When she opened her eyes, she tried to focus not on the blossoming of his aura around him, but instead on the currents of Djed that flowed through his body. She could see the places where his nerves were, suffused with light as he drew Djed from his astral body. “Bring it on,” she replied when he asked if she was ready. She continued to watch him, though, and was surprised when Djed streamed down into his legs instead of his arm and hand, as she had said. “Wait – I don't think –” But it was too late. Hadrian's form blurred in her vision as he surged forward, and in the last second before she lost control of her auristic vision, she saw streaks of bright orange flood his aura: he was out of control. She tried to step out of the way when she heard him begin to yell, but her feet had barely lifted off the floor before he struck her and they both went flying. Hadrian, being a good foot taller than she and probably quite a bit heavier, hit her like a bag of rocks plowing into a feather. It was a good thing there wasn't any furniture in the room, because if she had hit any sharp corners she most likely would have broken a few bones, or worse. She instinctively reached out behind her with her hands to take the fall, but that didn't prevent her from hitting her head against the floor with a loud thunk. A second later Hadrian's body weight slammed into her, and she wheezed as air was forced up from her lungs. Her jaw snapped down and she bit her tongue, feeling the gush of blood flood her mouth. The miza, which had flipped up into the air, turned several times and, adding the final insult to injury (literally), plummeted back down and struck her on the nose. “Ughhh,” she moaned, spitting blood. “Hadrian, get offa me, you're really petching heavy...” As the stars cleared from her eyes, she realized she was mostly unhurt, except for her bitten tongue and stinging palms. “You godforsaken idiot. Are you okay?” Those were all the words she was capable of, seeing as Hadrian's weight pressing down on her was making it rather difficult to draw breath.

[Hadrian]

"M'sorry, m'sorry..." He rolled off of her, sure to be black and blue in several places by the morning. He blinked, but now to make the dancing stars disappear rather than to invoke the Sight. Finally he sat up, still blinking a bit and rubbing his head. "I... misjudged a little. I was trying to speed up my whole body, but apparently it only got to my legs, and not to the rest of me. Especially my head, because I couldn't think fast enough to stop myself. I think, perhaps, we should go for simpler and smaller before we try your exercise. Sorry." Indeed, he was blushing a bit. "Unless you want to try it on me. I guess I owe you one." OOCActually, I misread it and thought he was farther away from her and had to run up to her, but in any case, one learns from failure, right?

[Azilis Theroulde]

Azilis blinked a couple more times, clearing the remaining sparks from her vision. “S'fine. It's only my palms and my tongue that are hurt, anyway.” She swallowed the last of the blood that had been in her mouth; it had only been a slight cut, and though it stung it had stopped bleeding, for the most part. “Don't apologize anyway, that was my fault. I shouldn't have picked such a complicated exercise.” She sighed. “Obviously I suffer from an excess of ambition.” Bending down to the floor, she picked the miza up and stowed it back in her bag. “However, that was, er, an...inspired effort, Hadrian.” She grinned at him, to show she was only teasing, and extended a hand to help him to his feet. “I don't think I'll try it, personally. Imagine how I would do, having less magic experience than you...no broken bones for me today, thanks.” “Since I am not, apparently, very good at picking exercises we might be able to accomplish at our level, have you got ideas for other exercises we could try? Or we could end it here, if you like.”

OOC :

No worries, I should have explained it better. Sorry for choosing an exercise that was too complicated, though. Eep.

[Hadrian]

"Well, I do think we learn more from mistakes than from getting everything right all the time, but why don't we take this opportunity to do something along the lines of increasing djed flow to our injured areas in hopes our bodies will figure out how to use that to make us feel better faster? I think all we would have to do is meditate a bit, focus on the parts that hurt, and then direct djed into those areas. We might even be able to increase djed absorption from without... Generally meditation helps me with that, anyway. How does that sound?" He stood up fully then, though a faint wave of dizziness made him think perhaps he should sit down while they tried this if she was game. If she opted out, he would just go home and try it on his own. OOCNo worries. As Hadrian said, you still learn from failing.

[Azilis Theroulde]

“Brilliant idea, that. And even if it doesn't work, it'll be fascinating to see what the effect of directing an excess of Djed to the areas will do.” She sat down again, gingerly crossing her legs into a comfortable position. “And the better we get at meditation, the better we get at concentrating and focusing and, thus, every sort of magic, right? So it's a win-win situation.” She closed her eyes and imagined the tension and pain sloughing off her body, starting at her feet and going upwards. As she maintained her breathing at the steady rhythm which she always used, she focused on a harp melody that was running through her head at the moment, envisioning herself plucking out the notes and chords to craft a song. Instead of using a mantra, as some disciplines of meditation advised, she found it much more useful to use several bars of music and loop it over and over in her head. When she was at last serene, she once more called up a map of the Djed running through her body by opening her eyes and focusing auristically on the infintesimal motions of her body. She held her palms out in front of her and focused on the stinging of the left one, accepting the pain as a message to her body that something was wrong instead of an annoyance. She imagined the Djed surging up, out of her blood vessels and into the layers of skin. At first it didn't obey her, but she kept pushing at it mentally until several rivulets began to do her bidding, surrounding the scrapes and scratches. Azilis felt the pain recede until it was barely there, a tiny buzzing at the back of her consciousness. “Hey, Hadrian. I...I think it's working.” Hopefully it wasn't just the placebo effect, and her mind wasn't trying to fool her into thinking she was doing something she was not. “It's just like you said, using the Flux constructively...”

[Hadrian]

Glad to have salvaged some of his seeming sense, he settled down to meditate as well. His method remained the tried and true breathing regulation; for someone so out of tune with his body, focusing his mind on such a basic physical process, breathing, helped him bring body and mind into alignment. Once he was calm and in control, he opened his eyes to the djed around him. Looking down to a knee he had scraped and likely bruised, he could see through the fabric of his clothes and saw the way the djed reacted to his slight injuries. The more he practiced seeing auras, the more detail he began to notice. It was like everything was there before him, but he had to learn to filter out what he didn't need so he could focus on what it was he wanted. He continued breathing carefully, measuredly, and released that Vision and let his eyes fall shut again. It was good to have that tool, but he didn't want to become too dependent upon it. He tried to feel the flow of djed through him, the djed around him, and he began to sense it, tremulous at first as if his mind wasn't sure to trust this new source of information. With each inhalation, he imaged pure white djed entering his mouth, trailing down his throat, spreading through his lungs and dispersing into the rest of his body. With each exhalation, he visualized against the comfortable darkness behind his eyes the energy he didn't need exiting him. As he began to feel more energized, he tried to direct the flow of that energy toward each sensation of pain with the intention of realigning everything. At first it hurt more, as with greater awareness, but then it began to ease as his mind accepted the pain and moved on. When he opened his eyes again to Azilis' report, he smiled and nodded. "I don't think I magically reversed the damage, but it feels like... I don't know, it feels like my body is already hard at work repairing itself. Like perhaps I was communicating with my body on an inarticulate level, but with greater understanding... Does that sound stupid?"

[Azilis Theroulde]

She inclined her head slightly, trying to acknowledge his comments without losing her concentration. “No, that doesn't sound stupid at all. Obviously my injuries aren't healed at all – I mean, I have no experience doing that – but the pain is definitely far less. Like I'm directing the Djed to take my mind away from the pain. Or maybe using it to trick my body into thinking there is no pain.” Azilis continued to focus on the effervescent Djed, observing how the scrapes on her left palm seemed to change in her vision from an angry red to a soothing white as more of the magic rippled around them. “Perhaps I'm just playing mind games with myself and it has nothing to do with the Djed – but I don't think that's it." A headache began to pound at her temples from trying to talk, focus auristically, and manipulate her Djed all at the same time. Azilis blinked several times, clearing away her auristic vision from her eyes. She could still feel the Djed she had called up pulsating in her hand, as if an insect was beating its wings beneath her skin. "It's more like I'm syncing my conscious thought and the machinations of my body, if that makes sense.”